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Record

Court opinion

1967-12-18

CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States

Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)

Supreme Court decision of December 18, 1967 holding that FBI recording of a gambler's calls from a public telephone booth was a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, and that the trespass doctrine of Olmstead was no longer controlling.

Date
1967-12-18
Kind
court-opinion
Source
CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Docket
389 U.S. 347 (1967), No. 35
Rights
Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, a federal work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. CourtListener (Free Law Project) hosts the text; it is not the source institution.

Decided December 18, 1967; No. 35. Katz was convicted in the Southern District of California on an eight-count indictment for transmitting wagering information by telephone from Los Angeles to Miami and Boston, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1084 (the 1961 Wire Act, filed separately). The government’s evidence included recordings FBI agents made with a device attached to the outside of a public telephone booth.

The Court held: “The Government’s activities in electronically listening to and recording the petitioner’s words violated the privacy upon which he justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and thus constituted a “search and seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” (389 U.S. at 353.) Earlier the opinion says: “For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.” (389 U.S. at 351.)

On Olmstead v. United States (1928), the opinion says “the underpinnings of Olmstead and Goldman have been so eroded by our subsequent decisions that the “trespass” doctrine there enunciated can no longer be regarded as controlling.” Katz was decided six months before Title III of the 1968 Act.

itemWire Act: 75 Stat. 491 (Public Law 87-216), 13 September 1961, adding 18 U.S.C. 1084The 1961 Act adding 18 U.S.C. 1084, which made it a crime for a person in the business of betting or wagering knowingly to use a wire communication facility to transmit bets, wagers or wagering information across state or national lines.itemBerger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 (1967)Supreme Court decision of June 12, 1967 holding New York's permissive eavesdrop statute "too broad in its sweep" and so in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, reversing a conviction for conspiracy to bribe the Chairman of the State Liquor Authority.itemOmnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Title III: Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance (Public Law 90-351), 82 Stat. 211Title III of the 1968 Act added chapter 119 to title 18: it prohibited private interception of wire and oral communications and set up court-ordered interception for listed offenses. Its findings state: "Organized criminals make extensive use of wire and oral communications in their criminal activities."itemOlmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)The Supreme Court holds, 4 June 1928, that federal prohibition officers' wiretapping of telephone lines without entering the defendants' premises was not a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment, so the intercepted conversations were admissible.